Remember Shinsuke Nakamura? He won the Royal Rumble, which typically crowns one of the most important figures of any given WrestleMania season, before memorably calling out AJ Styles.

Credit: WWE.com

Shinsuke Nakamura vs. AJ Styles has been lost in the shuffle thus far this WrestleMania season.

But after an unceremonial win over Rusev, whose popularity in juxtaposition made it seem like he won the Royal Rumble, Nakamura has a lot of ground to cover in order to reappear on the WrestleMania radar.

SmackDown Live's viewership was lackluster to begin 2018, and even its post-Royal Rumble episode continued a weekly trend of declining viewership, which lasted until the February 20 episode drew 2.613 million average viewers.

Nakamura's cool-down period since winning the Royal Rumble in January isn't entirely his fault. SmackDown Live has a roster that is far too big for its own two-hour timeslot with no overrun. WWE Fastlane has been more of a thorn in WWE's side as it has done nothing but put multiple feuds on hold until the predictable pay-per-view mercifully runs its course.

Nakamura's should-be dream match against AJ Styles has been particularly damaged by the slow jog to Fastlane as Nakamura has been made to wait in the wings until Styles is finished defending his WWE Championship against five opponents.

Nakamura and Styles have had limited interactions over the past several weeks. In fact, the buildup to their nerd-approved Wrestle Kingdom rematch has only consisted of a couple segments where Nakamura offhandedly mentioned he would beat Styles.